Crown Resorts Limited (ASX: CWN) based out of Melbourne, is one of the Australia’s largest entertainment groups with a portfolio comprising huge investments in the gaming industry. Crown owns and operates integrated resorts that include The Crown Melbourne Entertainment Complex and Crown Perth Entertainment Complex in Australia and the Crown Aspinall's in London. In Asia, Crown holds a substantial interest in Melco Crown Entertainment Limited (MCE), which operates hotels and casinos in Macau. According to the group’s full- year FY 2016 results, normalised net profit after tax (NPAT) was $406.2 million, down 22.7 per cent compared to the previous year. The decline was accredited to the continuing downturn in the share of the company’s normalized NPAT from Melco Crown Entertainment Limited, which was down about 65 per cent, year- on- year.
 
This year, Crown announced that they intended to offload a majority of their stake in businesses overseas, including a 27.4 per cent stake in Melco Crown Entertainment Ltd., and its gaming hub in Las Vegas to protect and expand their investments in Australia. The move was prompted by a continuing decline in the company’s overseas revenue and a crackdown on casino operators by the Chinese government's campaign. The woes further heightened as Chinese authorities detained some of the employees of the company sometime back. The company’s revenue in Macau has suffered drastically for close to two years now and Crown expects more bad news as revenues from its Australian casinos have been seen to drop by about 12 per cent in the six months ending December of this year, mainly due a sharp fall in VIP gamblers from the Asian region. Latest update indicated that the company is likely to abandon a proposed spinoff of its international assets, scrap plans to build a casino in Nevada and focus on selling half its stake in Melco Crown Entertainment Ltd. In the above regard, Crown has entered into further agreements in respect of its shareholding in Melco Crown Entertainment which, together with the sale to Melco International Development Ltd announced on December 15, 2016 reduces the company’s shareholding to 11.2 per cent of MCE shares. The company also indicated to use the proceeds of A$1.9 billion towards debt reduction, paying special dividend to the shareholders of about $600 million and enable a share buy-back of about $500 million.
 
Share prices in Crown have dropped about 10 per cent in last six months while moving up 7 per cent in last one month (as at December 16, 2016). Crown Resorts otherwise continue to prepare for the proposed Crown REIT IPO.

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